Dawnpaw's Prophecy - The Prophecy Begins
by GirlWithPrettierLies
Summary: "You Clan cats think you're so special." The black she-cat spat maliciously, circling around the small patrol of AmberClan cats. "Just because you're all united." Cloudpaw shifted uncomfortably under her cold green eyes as they landed on each of the Clan cats in turn. It wasn't exactly her fault that she was stuck on this patrol in the first place! *Sorry! Not a very good summary*


Prologue:

"You Clan cats think you're so special." The black she-cat spat maliciously, circling around the small patrol of AmberClan cats. "Just because you're all united."

Cloudpaw shifted uncomfortably under her cold green eyes as they landed on each of the Clan cats in turn. It wasn't _exactly_ her fault that she was stuck on this patrol in the first place!

The cat next to her, her mentor, and a tall, strong golden-furred tom with cold blue eyes, unsheathed his claws. Cloudpaw watched him out of the corner of her eye, praying that the rogue hadn't noticed.

"You think that just because there are so many of you, you get the entire forest to yourselves!" The black rogue finished, lashing her long tail. The silver tabby tom beside her glared at them triumphantly, and Cloudpaw noticed the moonlight radiating from above flashed on something near his paws.

He had unsheathed his claws.

The apprentice felt a rush of dread. These rogues obviously weren't peaceful. In fact, Cloudpaw was willing to bet her sister, Whitepaw, twelve moons of dawn patrols that they were about to attack, when she got back.

 _That is, if we_ do _get back._

Cloudpaw shook her pelt, trying to get rid of the gruesome thought, when suddenly, a stronger scent hit her nose. It smelled exactly like the rogues, except stronger and larger. _Oh no._

"Sunblaze…?" She hissed to her mentor meekly.

Sunblaze seemingly ignored her, but Cloudpaw saw his ear flick. That meant that she had his attention. Part of it, at least.

Cloudpaw inhaled sharply. The rogue-scent was getting stronger, and fast. "I smell more of them."

Sunblaze turned his head to look at her. The alarmed expression on his face told her that he hadn't yet smelled them. But when he quickly scented the air, his expression changed from shock to fury.

A pretty brown tabby she-cat with a white underbelly took a step forward. Cloudpaw saw her narrow her eyes as she challenged the black rogue.

"Who are you?" The AmberClan deputy yowled furiously. A terrified chill crept up Cloudpaw's back. Even though they were on the same side, Honeyscar still terrified her.

But to her surprise, the rogue merely looked amused.

"The real question is," the black she-cat said coldly, slinking forward. "Is who are _you_?"

Suddenly, a large russet-furred tom erupted out from behind them. Cloudpaw's instincts screeched at her to run, but then she recognized him as Oaklight - one of the warriors of AmberClan.

 _Where did he come from?_

Sunblaze and Honeyscar's surprised expressions obviously radiated the same question as they watched Oaklight run to stand next to Honeyscar.

"You have no right to question her!" Oaklight roared, pinning his large ears to his broad head. "She is Honeyscar, and you're on our-"

"Silence, Oaklight!" Honeyscar interrupted, giving him a wholehearted glare.

"But Honeyscar!" Oaklight protested, whirling around to stare at her in surprise. "What's-"

"NIGHTFLY!"

Amidst the chaos of the yowling Clan cats and the approaching rogues, Cloudpaw heard a sharp, furious yowl. Almost instantly, everything silenced.

"A-Alpha!" The black rogue she-cat, who Cloudpaw guessed was Nightfly, gasped. "I didn't think you would make it!"

"What's going on?" Alpha snapped, stepping out from the shadows. Cloudpaw started at her. Alpha looked almost like her, with the same colored gray fur and darker stripes. But Alpha's eyes were multicolored - amber and blue - whilst Cloudpaw's were just a boring brown.

Nightfly opened her mouth to explain, but Sunblaze cut her off.

"You are on our territory!" He cried, leaping forward to stand beside Oaklight and Honeyscar, leaving Cloudpaw a few paces away.

"Leave at _once_ , and stop threatening our Clan!"

Cloudpaw hurried to catch up with them as Alpha regarded them each coldly. First her eyes rested on Oaklight. Then Honeyscar. Then Sunblaze. Then, when they landed on Cloudpaw, she felt a terrified thrill run up her back.

The rogue leader's eyes seemed to linger on her the longest, before they snapped back to see Nightfly, who was struggling to say something, but just couldn't shape the words.

"Well, then." Alpha chuckled at last. It was a chilly sound.

Nightfly was silent, shuffling her paws. Cloudpaw glanced around and noticed that they were now surrounded by rogues. She instinctively pressed up against Sunblaze and let out a terrified moan.

"Stop that," Sunblaze scolded her in a low voice. "They can smell your fear-scent. And that's never good."

 _Oops_. Cloudpaw nodded meekly and pulled away from him. She tried her best to be brave, but she was screaming in fear internally, and she didn't exactly knew what brave looked like. So she just glanced at her older Clanmates and copied their position. Standing straight, chest puffed outright. Eyes narrowed in suspicion and fury.

"So?" Nightfly said breathlessly, a creepy grin creeping up her face. "Do we get to?"

 _Get to what?_

"I don't see why not," Alpha yawned. Cloudpaw was taken aback by her carefree manner. The gray rogue she-cat was now sitting down, gazing at them calmly. _She really isn't scared of us._

It seemed like everyone else knew what was going on except for Cloudpaw. Everything happened in a flash to her - the rogues closed in on them, and the warriors drew a protective circle around her.

Everyone began fighting. Cats yowling and screeching all around her, her Clanmates being hopelessly outnumbered… A rogue breaking through the circle and lunging for her.

A piercing pain struck across one of her eyes, and she let out a screech of pain. Sunblaze tackled the rogue to the ground and sank his fangs into the rogue's neck. The rogue let out a terrible screech.

Cloudpaw could only watch out of one of her eyes as a rogue came up from behind and slammed Sunblaze to the ground. A terrible crack followed right after.

Then everything faded into darkness.

"No," Spiderflake breathed, staring down at the limp, broken figure at her paws. His golden fur was all tangled and mottled and thick with blood - mostly his own, although she noticed that some was rogue blood.

Sunblaze was dead, and there was nothing she could do about it. Spiderflake sank to a sitting position and lowered her head over his limp body. She didn't exactly know how he was murdered - it could be the gash on his throat, or his broken ribs. Spiderflake bet that the pain from both of his terrible wounds was too much for the strong warrior to handle.

 _I'm just lucky that no one else is dead._ Spiderflake forced herself to remember, drawing a shaky breath as she tore her eyes away from the dead warrior. Her eyes fell on Cloudpaw's limp shape a few nests over.

The AmberClan medicine cat hurried over, inspecting Cloudpaw's wounds for what felt like the thousandth time. The large gash across the young gray apprentice's left eye was bleeding heavily despite the wad of cobwebs Spiderflake and splayed across it. She was so absorbed by the cat's injury, she hardly noticed another cat walking into the den.

"How are they doing, Spiderflake?" A she-cat murmured, concerned.

 _Great StarClan, no._ The tortoiseshell she-cat whirled around to see a brown cat with darker brown stripes, a snow-white underbelly, and dark blue eyes. Spiderflake took a deep breath, glancing over at Sunblaze's body at the corner of her eye.

The brown she-cat followed her gaze and let out a sharp gasp. Spiderflake padded over to her and rested her tail gently over the brown she-cat's shoulder.

"Sunblaze is dead," Spiderflake told her softly.

"No!" The brown she-cat wailed, rushing over to him. She crouched before his body. "He can't be dead!"!

"I'm so sorry, Hawkstar." Spiderflake said sadly, walking over to her. "I did the best I could, but his wound was already infected when Honeyscar and the rest of the patrol arrived."

"Why are those rogues so barbaric?" Hawkstar snarled, lashing her long, brown tail as tears streamed from her eyes. "They were on _OUR_ territory in the first place!"

"Who knows…?" She didn't want to admit it in front of her leader, but Spiderflake had been wondering the same exact thing.

Hawkstar finally tore her eyes from her brother's mangled body and stared around at the rest of the den. "How are the others?"

"Not so good," the tortoiseshell medicine cat confessed. "Cloudpaw's face wound isn't healing like I expected it to. A few of Oaklight's claws have been ripped out. Luckily, Honeyscar only got a few scratches, but I'm still working on her."

"Oh." Hawkstar's ears pinned to her head. "Is there anything you can do for them?"

"Honeyscar just needs rest," Spiderflake promised. "She'll be back for deputy duties quite soon. Oaklight might take a while longer, and, well, I don't know about Cloudpaw. Say, who's been taking over her duties?"

"Rowanshade," Hawkstar told her.

"Ah." It was a good choice, Spiderflake supposed, but there was something unsettling about the way the pale gray tom's bright amber eyes looked at the Clan. Spiderflake couldn't quite place it.

"Whitepaw is heartbroken." The leader continued, pacing around. Spiderflake noticed she kept her distance from Sunblaze's nest. "I keep telling her Cloudpaw will be okay, but…"

"She will be," Spiderflake promised, although a seed of doubt was planted in her mind.

Hawkstar seemed satisfied with that, so she nodded to Spiderflake before padding out of the den, a large hollowed-out boulder. Spiderflake let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding.

 _I made a promise_ , Spiderflake thought as she padded over to her herb store to grab more cobwebs for Honeyscar and Cloudpaw. _But what happens if I won't be able to keep it?_

Hawkstar took one more glance at the medicine cat's den as soon as she was outside. The dark night sky casted a dark shadow on the den's stone walls. It had almost been a week since the attack, and it was hard without her deputy, Honeyscar. Rowanshade was a good enough of a replacement, but she didn't know how the pale tom would react once Honeyscar was fit to be deputy once again.

And she couldn't get her mind off of Sunblaze. The memory of his limp, mangled body still blazed fresh in her mind. What had happened to her strong, able-bodied brother?

As Hawkstar walked to her den, she didn't bother to hide her grief. Her brother was dead. The only other kin she had was her mother, Lichenbright, but she was always in the elder's den and hardly spoke anymore.

The grass felt cold against her paws, and she glanced up at the sky. Little white flakes were slowly falling from the sky.

 _Snow! Oh, stop it Hawkstar - you're not a kit!  
_

Shaking off the snow that landed on her whiskers, Hawkstar continued trudging over to her den. The pine trees that surrounded AmberClan's hidden camp swayed in the chilly breeze.

Finally, Hawkstar reached the boulder. The top was somehow already covered with snow - a snowstorm was definitely coming. Hawkstar ducked into a small hole on the side of the hollowed rock. She always gave Clan announcements on the top of the rock. But as much as Hawkstar longed to right now, she knew that she should wait to announce Sunblaze's death.

She padded through a tunnel that lead to an underground cave. A small stream trickled through the back of the den, and a large, warm nest of moss was in a corner. With a low, defeated sigh, Hawkstar marched over to the nest and flopped down, sinking into the moss. She wished it could swallow her up.

After a few moments of feeling sorry for herself, Hawkstar heard pawsteps coming from the mouth of the tunnel. A few seconds after, she heard a voice drifting down.

"Hawkstar? May we come in?" Hawkstar recognized the voice of Whitepaw, Cloudpaw's sister.

"We brought some prey!" Another voice added. Hawkstar couldn't recognize who it was at first.

"Yes, come in." Hawkstar mumbled, curling up tighter. She wasn't really in the mood to talk with anyone. She was also astounded at how she suddenly managed to get grumpy all of a sudden.

"Are you alright?" Whitepaw asked, hurrying down the tunnel.

Hawkstar ignored her, and trained her eyes on the cat behind Whitepaw. She was a russet-furred she-cat with white and brown splotches. The russet she-cat carried a large shrew in her jaws.

"We brought you some prey," her mentor, Deerstripe, added through the shrew, stating the obvious.

"Are you alright?" Whitepaw asked him again, tilting her head. "You seem to be taking the loss of Sunblaze… well, hard."

"You know already?" Hawkstar was surprised.

The little white apprentice ducked her head. "Well, I went to check on Cloudpaw, and... "

"Aren't you?" Hawkstar interrupted.

"Aren't I…. what?" Whitepaw repeated, puzzled.

"Upset about Sunblaze?"

"Of course we are," Deerstripe cut in gently, placing the shrew to the ground. "It-It's just…"

"You can't dwell on things for too long," her apprentice finished her thought, and Hawkstar wondered how Whitepaw had gained such wisdom. Her moment of being impressed quickly evaporated into nothingness.

"You're saying I can't be sad about my dead brother?" Hawkstar roared suddenly, leaping to her paws. She didn't know what had gotten into her - a fury suddenly pounded in her chest, an unstoppable force that hardly wavered.

"No!" Whitepaw shrieked, leaping back. "That's not what we're saying at all!"

Hawkstar bared her teeth at Whitepaw, allowing her claws to slide out. She hardly saw anyone out of her mask of fury. But suddenly, she was shoved to the ground. When Hawkstar looked up to see her attacker, she saw Deerstripe.

Deerstripe didn't look upset, or even angry. The only readable expression on her face was sympathy.

"Are you okay?" The warrior asked her leader softly, stepping away from her.

Hawkstar rose to her paws, sheathing her claws again. Whitepaw stared at her with wide, terrified eyes.

"I'm sorry." Hawkstar murmured, ducking her head. "I don't know what got into me. T-Thank you."

Hawkstar had originally meant for the shrew, but Whitepaw looked like she had taken it a completely different way.

"Whitepaw, go to your den." Deerstripe ordered, straightening up. "It's going to snow heavily soon, and you need some rest."

"O-Okay. Good night, Hawkstar." Whitepaw dipped her head respectfully to the leader and her mentor before dashing away up the tunnel. Once Whitepaw disappeared from earshot, Deerstripe whirled around to glare at Hawkstar.

"What was with you?" Deerstripe spat. "You gave the poor apprentice a heart attack!"

"I'm sorry!" Hawkstar yelped, surprised at Deerstripe's sudden outburst, and a little bit frightened. _This must've been how Whitepaw and Deerstripe felt a few moments ago._

"You aren't the only one who lost someone in this attack," the warrior continued coldly, glaring at her.

Hawkstar let the words sink into her fur for a few moments before she realized what Deerstripe had meant. She meant Cloudpaw, and how Whitepaw had practically lost her in a battle. The AmberClan leader let out a defeated sigh and sank down to a sitting position.

"You're right," Hawkstar said helplessly, curling her long brown tail over her large paws. "I'm being selfish, aren't I?"

To her surprise, Deerstripe's expression softened.

"No." The russet she-cat shook her head. "Just… You need some rest. Good night, Hawkstar. May StarClan light your path, and grant you good dreams."

"You too," Hawkstar murmured half-heartedly as Deerstripe nodded to her and disappeared out the tunnel.

Sighing, she curled up in her nest. Maybe this was just a nightmare. Maybe it was all a bad dream, and Hawkstar would wake up, and Sunblaze would still be alive.

But as she sank into a restless slumber, Hawkstar knew that would never happen.

"Hawkstar? Hawkstar, wake up!"

Hawkstar blinked open her eyes, looking around wildly. Was it morning already? Had the night gone by so quickly? It only felt like she was sleeping for a few heartbeats!

But as she looked around, she noticed that she wasn't in her den anymore. Instead, she was in a brightly-colored forest, with a beautiful blue sky and fluffy white clouds. A warm breeze cut through the air, warming Hawkstar up instantly.

 _I'm in StarClan's hunting grounds!  
_

"Good, you're awake!" The voice that had arisen her said excitedly.

"W-What?" Hawkstar turned around to see who was talking. To her surprise, it was a small, beautiful gray she-cat with one brown eye. The other one, to Hawkstar's surprise, was closed, scarred. "Cinderbird!"

Hawkstar sighed. As happy as she was to see one of her former apprentices so happy and lively, she couldn't get her horrible death out of her mind. Cinderbird had been massacred by a patrol of MoonClan cats by the border when she had just become a new warrior.

"It's been so long, Hawkstar!" Cinderbird said excitedly. "So, I finally convinced StarClan to let me give you the message?"

 _Message?_

"What message?" Hawkstar wondered out loud.

When suddenly, she realized something. She opened her mouth to ask Cinderbird if she could see Sunblaze, but then all of a sudden, StarClan's forest faded all around her into blackness.

"The dawn will bring light to defeat the rising darkness." It was Cinderbird's voice, but it came from all directions.

Hawkstar whirled around, looking wildly for Cinderbird, but she saw nothing. Instead, horrible vision flashed in her mind. Her Clan being invaded by the rogues. Kits being stolen and killed in front of their mothers. So much blood…

When suddenly, all of the visions disappeared. They were replaced by a vision of a cat leading AmberClan to victory. She was a small black cat with a white underbelly, and blue eyes that shone with confidence.

 _A prophecy?_

 **A/N: So, this is a Warriors fanfic! It's my first one, so I hope you like it. R &R!**

 **~TOODLES!**


End file.
